Battle of Gravelines

August 8, 1588

Off the Flemish sandbanks of Gravelines, English ships scattered the Armada with long-range gunnery and forced it north into the gales of the North Sea. Medina Sidonia lost perhaps half his fleet on the return voyage around Scotland and Ireland. Spanish invincibility died in Hebridean surf. The victory shattered Spanish invincibility and announced England's emergence as a major naval power for the next four centuries.